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Landfills are a major methane emitter, but the current bottom-up inventories used for emissions accounting are poorly constrained and show strong biases. Improved emissions estimates show that across the globe, methane emissions from individual landfills have been underestimated by up to 200%.
Using decades of high-resolution mapping, this study tracks the land area of the wildland–urban interface that is exposed to fire risk, finding increases in both area and risk in multiple locations globally.
While the economic effects of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been studied extensively, this study examines how efforts to achieve balance across the SDGs affect subjective well-being within and across countries.
Air pollution is commonly thought to disproportionately affect lower-income communities. In most low- and middle-income countries, however, air pollution is found to be highest in wealthier urban areas.
Cookstove carbon offset projects can contribute to various socio-economic and environmental goals if their implementation is based on accurate emissions reductions estimations. A study assesses different methodologies for cookstove offset projects and quantifies their over-crediting.
Hydropower is expected to expand in the coming decades as an attractive renewable energy source, but one that can have negative environmental impacts in sensitive ecosystems. Enhanced integration of variable renewable energy can offset hydropower expansion in some eco-sensitive river basins, but is mostly insufficient to offset the steep upward pressure on hydropower development that will be exerted by the low-carbon energy transition.
The agricultural production of food comes with substantial greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on the environment. Dietary fats, a staple of human diet, might be produced chemosynthetically with a fraction of the detrimental effects on the environment.
While most conservation efforts rightfully focus on the percentage of protected land, this paper analyses how the size and complexity of protected area boundaries affects the remoteness of internal areas and the contiguity of protected natural ecosystems
Illegal logging in the Brazilian Amazon exacerbates existing degradation and pressures, but has been difficult to measure. This paper identifies the risk of entry points for illegally logged forests into formal supply chains to quantify how widespread this issue may be.
Where to invest to help transform current livestock systems towards sustainability and climate resilience is currently unclear. This study identifies priority locations for investments supporting climate change adaptation and mitigation across 132 low- and middle-income countries, at mid- and low latitudes.
Fertilizer supply is highly sensitive to international disruptions. Geospatially differentiated strategies, including integrated inorganic and organic management to N-deficient regions, can bolster global food security
Sourcing rare earth elements (REEs) from unconventional feedstocks has substantial environmental and societal–economic benefits. Here the authors develop tools to evaluate the economic viability of unconventional REE feedstocks to facilitate the implementation of a sustainable REE supply.
A global meta-analysis examines concurrent soil organic carbon (SOC) and yield responses—including their direct connection—to cover cropping and suggests that targeting cover crops on low-carbon soils can lead to direct yield benefits from SOC increases.
Increasing the reach of biodiversity conservation requires addressing the material needs of individuals and communities in and around protected areas. This analysis provides a comprehensive global projection for a conservation basic income.
The impacts of biological invasions may be unevenly distributed globally, with a few regions bearing most of the cost. This study identifies cost distributions of invasions among origin and recipient countries and continents, and determines socio-economic and environmental predictors of cost dynamics.
China’s power generation is still based on a centrally planned operation (CPO) as market reforms are slow. This study finds that continuing to rely on the CPO has led to the accumulation of substantial greenhouse gas emissions, and reveals the underlying mechanisms driving emissions.
A global analysis of income inequality and flood disasters in middle- and high-income countries between 1990 and 2018 shows that unequal countries tend to suffer higher flood fatalities.
School buses provide crucial transport for millions of children across the United States, but this analysis finds that the diesel exhaust from older buses is impacting their health and that updating the bus fleet nationwide could lead to 1.3 million additional student days of attendance.
Global initiatives to expand protected areas focus on controlling ‘above ground’ impacts such as land use, overlooking the potential human impacts on protected areas through groundwater flow. This study analyses the potential extent of these impacts by mapping groundwatersheds.
Despite the increasing importance of local and regional research for conservation efforts worldwide, research published in languages other than English is routinely ignored by global assessments. This study examines how such research is used and cited at national levels even though it is overlooked internationally